Over Sunday and Monday National Grid customers in New England and New York state fell just short of record gas consumption on the company’s distribution system, National Grid said Tuesday. Bitter cold drove consumption up.

Between 10 a.m. EST Sunday, Jan. 23 and 10 am EST on the following day National Grid delivered 4.55 Bcf of natural gas to its 3.4 million customers in New England and New York. The total fell just short of the record of 4.57 Bcf that the company delivered to customers on Jan. 15, 2004.

A regional breakdown of throughput of natural gas during the 24-hour period shows that the New York City area set an all-time record demand of 1.24 Bcf. Over the same period, the Long Island region used 0.83 Bcf. In National Grid’s upstate New York distribution area customers used 1.04 Bcf. Gas usage in New England represented the region’s 16th highest throughput, the company said.

The demand was brought on by the frigid weather that moved into the area over the first part of the weekend. Official low temperatures of minus 7 degrees were recorded in Syracuse and Albany, NY. The temperature hit minus 2 in Boston and 6 degrees in the New York City and Long Island areas.

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